


Aphrodite's Mark

by angelinthecity



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Beach Sex, CMBYN December Fest 2020, Chess, Elio's POV, Established Relationship, Fluff, Honeymoon, Kissing, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27877942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelinthecity/pseuds/angelinthecity
Summary: On their honeymoon in Greece, Oliver and Elio spend a day on a secluded beach.“Just like the queen, I can now move anywhere,” he whispered, and the goosebumps trickled down my neck. The game had only been a way of stalling, a way for us to gather our appetites for what came next.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 71
Kudos: 155
Collections: CMBYN December Fest 2020





	Aphrodite's Mark

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to those lovely people on Tumblr who said they’d read this if I wrote it. 
> 
> [Here’s also a gif set](https://angel-in-new-york-city.tumblr.com/post/633678108131786752/oliver-and-elio-honeymooning-in-greece), edited by me, that served as the visual inspiration.
> 
> Written for the CMBYN December Fest 2020 writing challenge, for the prompt “A glimpse into the future”.

The cove was exactly the kind of place one could picture finding on the Greek Islands. Frosted with fine sand and tall, noble rock formations providing shelter from prying eyes. Oliver had heard about this place from the department secretary and we’d made a mental note of bringing her a big bottle of retsina from the shop in the village.

The beach was quiet and empty, which meant that we could take our pick in choosing our spot for the blanket that Mrs Doukas from the bed and breakfast had given us. Oliver scouted the sun-drenched stretch of sand, the seam of his spine glistening on his tanned back. By now, I knew that back better than I did my own, had reacquainted myself with every inch of it ever since it had returned to my possession. I knew where to press when he’d had a rough day, where to tease, how low to kiss to get him to forget about any said hardships.

I took off my shirt, too, and walked to the water. It washed over my feet, crystal clear, and I poked the smooth, wet sand with my big toe. Shallow grooves in the shapes of hearts and letters, but none of them lasted long—every time a new wave came in, it stole my drawings back into the sea.

Finally Oliver settled on a spot.

“I think this is it,” he said and spread the blanket on the sand, close to the water but far enough from the waves so that we wouldn’t get soaked by the foamy ripples. He motioned towards the basket. “Would you unpack the food?”

Mrs Doukas had also insisted on packing a lunch for the _neónymfous_ , the honeymooners. “I can’t let you boys go hungry,” she’d insisted and piled her wrapped foods on top of the folded blanket.

The sand was piping hot under my soles as I squatted by the basket and unpacked two tomato sandwiches, fruit, linen napkins, a bottle of wine. I had found two mugs in there as well—for the wine, I assumed—when I noticed that there was still something else at the bottom.

“What’s this?” I asked and pulled out a large, rectangular box, made of lacquered squares of fair and dark wood.

“Take a guess,” Oliver said and took off his sandals, shook them to get the sand out, and settled down on the blanket.

I rattled the box.

“Careful!”

“Can I open it?”

Oliver hummed, amused. “Sure.”

I kneeled down on the blanket next to him and flipped the two metal clasps on the side of the box. The box opened in half and revealed an inside of green velveteen and a full set of chess pieces.

“The box is the board. It’s ours for the day,” Oliver explained.

I furrowed my brow. “But I don’t know how to play.”

“I’ll teach you.”

I tried to gauge his expression. “You weren’t deterred by the incident at the pool table?” The botched game at the hotel bar on our first night after landing in Athens hadn’t been my proudest moment.

“That required hand-eye coordination. Chess is about the brains.”

“Are you saying I lack hand-eye coordination? Me, a pianist?” Before he had time to answer, my fingers had snaked all the way up his inner thigh, gone directly for the spot between his legs that always got a reaction. One well-coordinated twist of a palm through the summer-weight fabric of his shorts and: “How about this for hand-eye coordination?”

I knew I had him because he shifted, wanted me to continue, but my hand had only wanted to cause a stir so it pulled away, already having accomplished its job.

Oliver growled at me, disappointed, and adjusted himself. “Fine, I take it back. You’ve got excellent hand-eye coordination.”

“Thank you.”

“It was Mrs Doukas who made me take the game.”

“Oh?”

“And I thought it could be fun.”

He nodded at the chess set, but my eyes hadn’t left his crotch. I began to regret my earlier retreat.

I reached casually for his chest, caressed the pleasantly warm skin there. “I could also think of something else that would be fun.”

“I know you could,” he said and placed his hand on top of mine; stopped it from advancing by weaving his fingers between mine.

“You’re going to make me play before we get to that?” I asked.

A kiss on my palm. “The winner takes all.”

“It’s not fair, though. You know how to play and I know nothing.”

“I never said it was going to be fair,” he reminded me with a smile and let go of my hand. He took out the chess pieces and flattened the sand under the blanket to make a place for the board.

“Okay.” I gave in. “What are we playing for?”

He pretended to think and then declared: “If you win, you get to do whatever you want with me. The same for me if I win.”

“Now we’re talking.”

We exchanged smiles as I crawled to the other end of the blanket and took my seat across from Oliver, the board now between us. He picked up two of the pieces, one black and one white, closed them inside his palms behind his back and then brought his fists out again, held them out to me.

“Pick one.”

I pointed my finger, painted a soft stroke across the hair on the back of his left hand and his fist unfurled like a blooming flower. In the center lay a white pawn.

“You play with white, then.”

“We each get sixteen of these,” he started to explain as he divided the rest of the pieces between us, the black ones for him and the whites for me. “They all have their own spots on the board. The eight pawns go on the front row. The king and the queen are the most important ones, so they stay closest to you, and the rooks, bishops, and knights go around them to protect them.”

I mirrored my set-up formation after his and placed all the white pieces in front of me in neat rows, each in the middle of their squares.

He gave an approving nod. “Good. Then we just take turns making moves.”

Oliver explained how each piece was allowed to move on the board and I tried to memorize them. _Pawns go forward only, horses go diagonal, a queen can move in any direction._

“But while you try and take your enemy’s pieces down, you also need to remember your own game and how to best protect your assets,” Oliver pointed out.

“Never reveal your king?” I recalled.

“Never. Unless you want to lose. Okay, you start.”

“Why me?”

“The white always starts.”

I looked at my two rows of white pieces. “What do I do?”

“You move one of your pawns ahead, for one or two squares. Or a knight.”

“Which one of them? And do I choose one or two squares?”

“That’s for you to decide.”

“But how will I know which move will be beneficial?”

“You don’t. At this point, when the game is just starting, you just take your chances. There are openings that you can use, like the Sicilian Defence or the Réti Opening with the knight, but you should learn the basics first before we get to those.”

I was inclined to tell him to teach me those right away, that I was a quick learner, but I remembered my frustration at the game of pool three nights ago and decided to let it go—for now. “So I just make my first move without knowing whether it will ever lead to anything?”

“Exactly.”

“But what if it’s a bad move?”

“Sometimes your first move leads to you getting destroyed, sometimes you end up hitting the jackpot. Applies to life, too,” Oliver added and raised his brows.

I thought of the jackpot that had taken years to materialize but was now in front of me, wearing his yellow shorts. _Sprightly, buoyant_. “Like when you rubbed my shoulder at the volleyball game?”

He shook his head. “At that point I did think it had just destroyed me. The way you pulled away.”

“I’ve told you why I did it.”

”Yes, you have. Now, stop stalling. Let’s play.”

For the first few rounds, he’d give me options what I could do with my pieces— _if you move your knight to c4, this bishop can’t get to it_ —but little by little the moves started to make sense and I began to get the hang of it. Still, I took longer than him pondering my moves, and during one of my turns he opened the wine; during the next he poured it into our mugs.

I took a gulp from mine. “So if I move the horse like this, I can take out this pawn of yours?”

He frowned. Neither of us had had any of our pieces captured yet. “Knight. The horse is called a knight. But, yes.”

He feigned disinterest but I could tell that my move had gotten him by surprise. I played along and pretended not to care about my first capture.

“My move,” he said and casually moved his bishop along, but he was careless and when it was my turn again, I spotted an opening.

I continued to play the role of the apprentice. “I don’t know if I got this right, but can I move my rook like this?” I slid the piece along the board to the square that was occupied by Oliver’s bishop.

Oliver bit on his lip. “Yes. Yes, you can. Good one,” he said as he watched me take the second one of his pieces off the board, but the neutral look on his face was too meticulously crafted to be natural.

I smiled. “Well, that was easy. I’m beginning to like this.”

“Beginner’s luck.”

“We’ll see,” I said and tucked my legs beneath me. “Your turn.”

Oliver sat up straighter as well, and while he’d still give me advice if I asked, he wasn’t nearly as eager to divulge any good moves anymore. He had a competitive side to him, I’d learned that a long time ago. It was a remove from his otherwise kind nature: that concentration in his eyes as he contemplated, the laser focus, the glint that was yearning for a victory.

On the next few rounds neither of us captured anything, but it had merely been calm before the storm and Oliver had just been setting up his game, because soon the carnage began for my poor soldiers.

Bishops: gone.

All but one of the pawns: gone.

Finally I had only one rook and one knight left to protect my king and queen while Oliver’s army was mostly untouched, not counting those two pieces I had captured early in the game.

“Your turn.”

“The queen could move in any direction, right?” I asked while I tried to think.

“Pretty much.”

I stared at my king and queen, no longer safely next to each other and the protective shield around them now woefully barren. I untucked my left leg, let the foot inch along the blanket until the toes reached up to Oliver’s thigh, sliding up and begging for help. ”So, what should I do?”

He patted my foot. “No more advice. You’re on your own now, Perlman.”

Disappointed, I began to retreat my foot after its expedition for intel had proven useless, but Oliver took it prisoner instead and moved it onto his lap, thumb circling the jutting bone at the ankle.

I looked up, met his eyes that gave nothing away, and looked back down at the board, scouting my options.

_If I move my rook, it will be in direct line of attack for one of Oliver’s knights._

His thumb began to knead at my sole, to move in circles the way I liked it. Soft, but firm.

_I can’t move my own knight either, and if I move my queen, my king will be fair game._

Long, winding, heavenly strokes from the heel to the toes.

I didn’t know what to do.

“The clock’s ticking,” Oliver reminded me as his other thumb joined the first one at the ball of my foot. It was my weakness and I hoped he wouldn’t stop when we would switch and it would be his move again.

“Okay.” I slid the king sideways towards my queen, in hopes that it would find better protection that way, but Oliver’s face lit up. I hadn’t paid attention to his queen that was hiding behind a rook.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not at all apologetically, as one of his hands left my foot and went for his queen, slowly starting to slide it diagonally all the way across the board. “But this is called a check…mate.”

I cursed as I realized that his queen’s next move would put it eye to eye with my king that had nowhere to go. The game was over; I had lost.

“Better luck next time,” Oliver winked at me.

His fingertips kept grazing the side of my foot. “You distracted me,” I muttered.

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“And which one is this?”

He lifted my foot to his lips and kissed the arch. “Which one do you think?”

“Next time I’ll show you the Sicilian Defence, if you want,” he promised and picked up my king and his queen. He placed them into their grooves in the velveteen insert and picked up two more pieces.

I leaned back on my forearms as he continued to clear up the board. “Where did you learn to play?”

I wondered how it had not come up before. Then again, we’d lost out on so many years that when we’d found each other again, there had been much more important business to attend to. The number of things still left to learn about him exhilarated me.

“My father taught me,” he said and glanced at me.

I said nothing but no words were needed, either. Despite everything, he’d been Oliver’s father and I knew what it was to grieve a parent. I got up and picked up a knight to help him; he accepted it, grateful. We continued to put the pieces back, one by one, together.

After the last of the last pawns was in the case, Oliver snapped the board closed. He returned the set to the basket behind me and the change in the mood had been only momentary, as one question from him electrified it again.

“And now, Elio, do you know what time it is?” I couldn’t see his face, but the words vibrated low in his throat as his hands landed on my shoulders and his voice right by my ear. “It’s time for me to collect my prize.”

I bit my lip to hide my smile and played naïve. “Oh, what were we playing for again?”

His voice was smooth as cream, lips grazing the shell of my ear. “You don’t remember?”

My pulse crept up my chest and towards my cheeks as I shook my head. “No.”

“Just like the queen, I can now move anywhere,” he whispered, and the goosebumps trickled down my neck.

The game had only been a way of stalling, a way for us to gather our appetites for what came next. He kissed my nape, all over the goosebumps, and reached around for my waist. The caresses swirled over my sides and stomach, warm from the day in the sun and heating up further with every touch until he had me laying on the blanket.

“Where does your queen want to go?” I asked as his eyes, bluer than the sea, hovered above me.

The tip of his nose traveled up my temple, then back down the side of my face until his lips found the pulse on my neck. “Where would you like it to go?”

“The winner gets to decide,” I managed to stutter, because now his fingers were working on the buttons of my shorts.

“He does?”

“I like it when you decide for me,” I whispered.

Oliver’s chest pressed on me and held me in place as his hand slid into my shorts. “Don’t you know that I like all of it,” he said but kissed the words into my mouth one by one. “Every. Single. Place on you.”

I craned my neck to see as he closed his palm around my length in a soft twist; I let out a half-a-word, half-an-exhale when the shuffling out of our shorts was taking too long. But after they were off and all our contact points were burning up with the heat from each other’s skin, there was nothing left to do but to succumb. I clung to Oliver’s body in the afternoon sun, wanting to burn down with him.

The finger that he pressed on my bottom lip got quickly invited in, and I didn’t let go until it was glistening with my saliva. He pulled out the finger but replaced it with his mouth, and kept a close watch on my face as the finger made its way inside me. First gingerly, then more determined.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked against my mouth.

I shook my head; swallowed. Just a little bit more and he’d get to the good spot.

“No.”

“I thought that maybe after last night this would be—”

“You’re not hurting me. Keep going,” I blurted out quickly before he’d start to hesitate.

I would’ve wanted to close my eyes, to let the billows of want take over, but he told me to keep looking at him, to keep looking in the eyes that took so much pleasure in mine.

“I’m ready,” I managed, when his finger had curled and hit the spot enough of times that I feared I’d come before I’d have him inside me.

“Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm. I want you. Insid—” My breath hitched when his finger took its final bow on its way off the stage. It had only been the opening number and the headlining star would soon appear. “Inside me,” I exhaled.

The seclusion and the fresh air were an intoxicating combination. I would get to make love to my very own Greek god, in our own personal paradise. My arms looped around Oliver’s neck as he simultaneously kissed me and let the tip of his cock enter me.

“More,” I breathed as he was taking it too slow.

“The winner gets to decide,” he reminded me as he held still and my nails sank to the skin on his back, hoping to pull him deeper in me. “Besides, I like you like this.”

I could hardly think. “Like what?”

“Like I’m the only thing that can make you happy.”

I pulled him to me by the back of his neck, feverish and abrupt, made his mouth crash onto mine. I forced his lips to open so that my tongue could take over, and the clumsy passion in my move made him lose his control and there he was, all the way home again.

The ache of fullness. Searing skin, the sweat bringing both glide and friction. The waves crashing to the shore between my heartbeats and his thrusts.

My arching towards him and him twisting around my body, both moving in rhythm like Ladon, the two-headed dragon snaking around the tree of Golden Apples. Our final shot didn’t come from Heracles’ bow, however, but from Oliver’s last push and I let the tides and currents of him wash over me, too.

We ran to the water, bare-naked, to clean up. We swam, held each other, played with the splashes and tried to kiss under the surface until I coughed seawater. Oliver stayed in longer, while I found myself getting hungry and already retreated back to our spot on the beach.

After putting my shorts back on, I took a famished bite out of one of the sandwiches and watched Oliver swim in long strokes parallel to the beach, back and forth. The sun had climbed up high, the light reflecting from the waves so that I could hardly spot his shape within the millions of golden sparkles. My jackpot.

He eventually rose from the water—like Triton, I thought. Wet hair slicked back, water dripping everywhere, and there was a swirl in the pit of my stomach again.

He walked over to me and kneeled between my legs, the water soaking the blanket beneath us, but I didn’t care and offered my face up to be kissed.

“Would you lie down for me?” he asked after the kiss. “I want to do something.”

“Again?” I asked and couldn’t believe my luck. “But considering how well you do it, I can’t really blame you.”

He blushed.

“After all these years, I can still make you blush?”

“Shut up. And no, that’s not what I meant. Just lie down, will you?”

I was reluctant to let go of him, but obliged and laid back.

“No, on your stomach.” He gestured for me to roll around. “Good. Now, don’t move.”

I rested my chin on my folded forearms and watched him pick up his shorts from the ground. “If it was up to me, we’d never leave this beach and you’d never wear a single item of clothing again,” I commented.

“Are you seventeen or thirty-seven?” he scolded me but grinned, and I could see that he was pleased.

“Seventeen,” I said softly.

He brushed the stray sand off his shorts and was clothed again far too quickly to my liking, but then he went to the basket and pulled out a book. I hadn’t noticed it in there before; maybe I’d been distracted by the chess set.

“What’s that? Are you going to read to me?”

“Yes, in a moment.”

He moved the half-eaten sandwich out of the way on the blanket, licked the tomato juices off of his finger before I could offer to do it for him, and sat next to me. The sun was so blinding behind him that I could hardly make out the contours of his face, let alone his expression, but from his voice I could tell he was smiling.

“I want to try something, but you have to stay still.”

“Still? For how long?”

“I’ll let you know. But that’s what the book is for.”

I settled into a position as he picked up a pinch of sand and touched my shoulder blade with it. His touch was light, too light, and it made me squirm. The grains slipped from my skin and he had to start over.

His thumb rubbed my back. “I was off to a good start. Just a little bit longer.”

The Grecian sun bathed the backs of my legs as Oliver worked with the sand, and whatever he was doing, he finished it off with a kiss on the dip of my back.

“Good boy. Now let’s delve into the goddess of love.”

I turned my head gingerly, trying not to move too much in case it would ruin his work. The paperback he held looked brand new and he opened it to the first page.

“What is that book?”

He let me have glimpse of the cover: _Aphrodite and her roles in Greek mythology._

“I haven’t seen that. Where did you get it?”

“At the airport.”

I found myself wanting to tease him. “I love having a husband who buys books on Greek gods. You know, instead of the latest crime novels, or whatever it is that normal people buy at airports. When did you even go to the bookstore? I never noticed.”

He raised his brow. “I would love a husband who would stop asking questions and let me read to him.”

I gestured for him to let me have his hand and when he did, I pulled it to me and kissed a playful apology on his fingertips that he then pressed to his own lips.

I smiled and closed my eyes. “I’ll listen now, I promise.”

The book started out intriguing, it really did. But the sounds of the waves were hypnotizing, and we hadn’t done much sleeping the night before, so sometime between Aphrodite’s affairs with Ares and Hermes, my eyelids started to become heavier and heavier until Oliver’s creamy voice lulled me to sleep.

At night, after Mrs Doukas had gotten her basket back and we were back in our room, I took off my shirt and went into the bathroom. I craned my neck to look in the mirror over my shoulder: there was a lighter, heart-shaped patch of skin on my shoulder blade, the sun having kissed the skin around it. Oliver walked in, pleased.

“You found it,” he said and leaned in to kiss the spot. “Aphrodite and I wanted to leave our mark on you.”

“How silly,” I said tenderly. “Don’t you know that you already left your mark on me twenty years ago?”

“So I’ve been told,” he said and embraced me from behind, rested his chin on the top of my head and looked at me in the mirror. His face close to mine—I’d never get tired of that sight.

“And me?” I asked.

He turned me around, took a hold of my hand, and pressed the heel of the palm against his heart. “A permanent one, right here. From day one.”

I tilted my head, stroked the line of muscle on his chest. “From day one?”

“Since the moment you came down the stairs.” Oliver bent down and picked me up in his arms, carried me back to the room. I remembered him doing it in Rome all those years ago, and here, on our honeymoon, he’d started doing it again. I loved it.

“And then what?” I asked, knowing what would come next but I relished hearing him tell this story.

“And then your father introduced us.” He placed me gently on the gauzy white sheets. “You shook my hand and asked your mother which room you were supposed to take me and my bags to.”

“And then?” I asked. This was the best part.

“I didn’t even listen to the answer. I would’ve followed you anywhere.”

“Me t—” I started, but he silenced me with a kiss, the first of many that followed on that night by the sea, under Aphrodite’s watchful eye.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the organizer of the CMBYN December Fest 2020 and thank you for reading <3 
> 
> Parts of this were obviously inspired by that one scene in _Rebecca_ (2020) and my apologies to any chess enthusiasts: I’m afraid the references to the game here are wildly amateurish, because like Elio, I know nothing. 
> 
> [angel-in-new-york-city](https://angel-in-new-york-city.tumblr.com)


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